Actor may leave stage clear for Arroyo

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's campaign to win a second term has been boosted by controversial evidence that could disqualify her leading challenger from standing in the presidential election in May.

The elections commission is reviewing documents said to show that the actor Fernando Poe is the son of an American mother and Spanish father.

Under Philippine law, children take the nationality of their parents and only "natural born" citizens are allowed to stand for president.

Mr Poe, 64, a high school dropout and former action movie hero, is posing a serious threat to Dr Arroyo's ambitions for another six-year term. He has been outstripping her in popularity polls for months and has won the backing of powerful supporters of the deposed former president Joseph Estrada, who also used his fame as a film star as a political springboard.

A decision disqualifying Mr Poe would restore Dr Arroyo as the frontrunner in the campaign ahead of a mostly uninspiring field of three other candidates.

The national archives office has presented the election commission with microfilmed records showing that Mr Poe's father, Allan Poe, was a Spanish citizen and his mother, Bessie Kelley, was a US citizen.

Victorino Fornier, a lawyer, who initiated the challenge, claimed Allan Poe was still legally married to another Spanish citizen at the time of his son's birth and as a child born out of wedlock Fernando Poe would automatically have adopted his mother's US citizenship.

But lawyers for Mr Poe claim the documents are forgeries produced as part of a government-orchestrated campaign to knock him out of the presidential race.

"Our [research] is based on truth. The truth shall set you free," said Estelito Mendoza, a lawyer for Mr Poe. At a hearing on Monday Mr Mendoza presented the commission with 22 pieces of evidence and counter affidavits, including birth and death certificates indicating Mr Poe's father was a Filipino who was decorated as an officer in the Philippines army during World War II.